Rating: 
Summary: Slightly better than the book, believe it or not
Review: 3 1/2 stars.The amazon.com reviewers for this movie seem to be mostly of two types: middle school kids and pseudo-intellectuals. This is neither horribly acted, nonsensical trash, nor is it an instant classic/tour de force/best movie ever!!. It's an entertaining movie with some fair-sized shortcomings. First, let me address the people who compare this movie with the book. As a history buff, I found the book terribly entertaining but terribly flawed (in fact, if you want to read my review of the book, look for the amazon.com review with that exact title). I found at least twenty significant plot flaws in Crichton's book and I really have to wonder how the editors let it loose on the public without tying up many, many loose ends or logical inconsistencies. Happily, the director Richard Donner and/or his screenwriters cleared some of those up, often by simply omitting them from the movie. For instance, the protagonists in the movie have a reasonable number of moderately plausible escapes from danger, one of which involved Kate climbing out of a castle tower. In contrast, in the book Crichton thought it would be clever to have our heroes make over a dozen utterly incredible, miraculous escapes, three or four of which feature Kate rescuing the others by virtue of her Spiderman-like climbing abilities. Donner also rejected Crichton's ridiculous technological flaw in which he claimed that ITC's machine isn't actually a time machine, but instead sends people to alternate universes occurring at different points in time; if so, how could Professor Johnson, who visited a different, semi-parallel universe, have left his note and glasses 600 years ago in our universe? The cinematic ITC does not mess with elaborate explanations, but simply states that they must be going through a "stable wormhole" into 1357 France. Donner also sensibly axed Crichton's absurd "Green Knight of the Chapel of Death." Donner's Claire was a much more simple, believable character than Crichton's (i.e., she wasn't sleeping with or otherwise manipulating every non-peasant male in the story). Who really cares if the character Chris is the professor's son in the movie, especially given that he does not act quite so foolishly as he did in the book. Let's address the acting. On a one-to-ten scale, the actors here range from about a four to perhaps a six. It was no oversight that none of these performances received Oscar nominations, but they weren't horrendous, either. Pretty much every performance was better than anything you've seen by Arnold Schwarzeneger, Adam Sandler or maybe even Kevin Costner. Nothing memorable, but nothing so poorly done that it ruined the movie. There are some problems with this movie. First, Marek seems too attached to Lady Claire based on very little exposure to her. It might have worked if there was another 20 minutes of interaction between them in the movie. Next, I didn't think Lord Oliver was quite sinister enough. There was also some ambiguity about time in this movie. The spotlight reviewer claims the movie was set in the year 1971. Although at the end, there is some mention about that year in reference to Marek's life, I think that may have been the year of his birth. The movie is either set in approximately present day 21st century or has some big gaffs (I don't recall seeing any cell phones or four wheel drive Volvo sport utility wagons in 1971). Overall, I thought the siege and battle were pretty well done, especially the trebuchets (medieval artillery, like a catapult), except for the archery aspect. First, the castle defenders shoot fire arrows, for no discernable reason, then they switch to regular arrows, which the French call "night arrows" and decide to retreat because of them??!? Doesn't make much sense. Donner kept Crichton's subplot of Professor Johnson creating Greek fire, for no particularly good reason. Just exactly how is it that an archeologist knows how to make an ancient chemical weapon that modern chemists can't duplicate? I rather liked Crichton's end for Donniger better than the movie's, sending him back to a slightly different period of medieval France, exposing him to the plague, but that would not have worked in the movie's technological world. In summary, this was a decent medieval action-adventure/sci-fi movie. It has a very interesting basic plotline, with nothing either stellar or abominable. It doesn't follow the book exactly, which actually is a benefit - this is one of the few movies that is better than the book upon which it is based. Sit down with some popcorn, refrain from microanalysis and enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Just forget the time travel and start storming the castle
Review: When it comes to movies about time travel the one that serves as a bench mark for me is "Somewhere in Time," where on the one hand you have the absolutely stupid idea that you can travel to the past by thinking yourself there, but on the other there are some memorable moments, such as the beginning when the old lady tells Christopher Reeves "Come back to me," and the point where he discovers that Jane Seymour is smiling at him when the photograph that captivates him was taken way back when. The great lesson I learned was that since time travel is impossible you are going to have to jump ahead to the willing suspension of disbelief for any of it to work at all and that ultimately the value of the film is if it has anything interesting to do with the idea of time travel. With "Timeline," the 2003 film that director Richard Donner ("Superman," "Lethal Weapon") made from Michael Crichton's novel, the suspension of disbelief is not that hard to manage. Once upon a time there is a company that was trying to find a way to send three-dimensional faxes (i.e., a "Star Trek" transporter), and they discovered that they were sending packages to not just another time but another place, namely 14th century France. We are told this is because there is a stable wormhole, at which point we nod our heads over that oxymoronic notion and look forward to what interesting things we get to do with this set up. What we get is the siege of a castle, held by the English, by a French army. What we do not get is a real reason why this has to be part of a time travel movie. The reasoning in the film is that the archeolgoist (Billy Connolly), who has been digging up the site in the present, has become stuck in the past, and his son (Paul Walker) and colleagues (Frances O'Connor and Gerard Butler) are sent back to help find him. However, my suspicious mind thinks that maybe what happened was that Crichton had a time travel novel that was not going anywhere and a story about the siege of a 14th century castle that had no real purpose, and he threw the two of them together, because the sad fact is that "Timeline" just does not get those two halves to fit together (there is a marvelous metaphor for this early in the film where one time traveler has made too many trips and his spine and other key body parts do not match up perfectly anymore). My preference is for the castle siege part of the equation; a straightforward movie about a medieval siege would be pretty interested and Donner gets points for doing most of the fun stuff here without resorting to computerized effects. But the assault keeps getting interrupted by the attempts of the time travelers to find each other and get themselves home. Then there is the whole fear about changing the future, which seems rather moot because these people are so far beyond the butterfly effect stage that trying to get history back on track seems rather laughable. Of course this gets tied up with a romantic plotline when one of the time travelers falls for a young woman he meets, only to discover she is the one whose death marks the turning point of the battle. At that point you know he is going to be able to have his cake and eat it too, and the question becomes whether this film can come up with a really neat way of carrying it off. The short answer is "No," it does not, and for those who are fans of time travel films the obvious comparison is going to be to "The Final Countdown" (What if the U.S. had a nuclear powered aircraft carrier at the attack on Pearl Harbor?). But then I am still trying to figure out why Walker is playing Connolly's son and not Butler given their accents, but then I also trying to understand why the trailers think that Walker and not Butler is the "hero" in this story. Then again, if you could show this film to an audience in 1557 I bet they would be really impressed by how this one came out.
Rating:
Summary: Serviceable, if a little too compressed
Review: Without regurgitating all the old canards about the problems posed by the tranposition of literary works to the screen, let's just say that this adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel is decent, if not overwhelmingly so. Coming as it does on the heels of LOTR I/II/III, practically any film based on a novel will fail the test - this one's no different. As popcorn entertainment, though, it's perfectly serviceable, if a little too compressed. Crichton's conundrum takes place over 36 hours, Richard Donner's adaptation reduces that to 6. The rest can easily be derived from that fundamental change. On the other hand, where Crichton needs time, literally, to describe life and the physical environment of the 14th century, a film can accomplish the same in an instant. LOTR (all three, for example) - in the original, verbal format, spends an inordinate amount of time describing things - places, the weather, emotive states, etc. Can anyone say with a straight face that the issue of "acting" should even be mentioned in such a film as this? Please, hang it up. I suspect the cognoscenti of science fiction film have come to "expect" everything will boggle the mind and the eyes. Sorry. This is a perfectly decent film of its kind. I would have preferred a lot more detail, and not nearly as much compression - but it's interesting that even so telescoped, the film still runs at 115 minutes. Think about it. Read the novel - see the film - then read the novel again. I don't expect my comic books to be the source of great revelatory anything - just plain, simple fun. Why, even the LOTR films had to cut the guts out of the original material - to get it down to 9.5 hours (theatrical versions). My only real problem with the film is the score - which is horrible. Poor Benny Herrmann and John Williams, good composers both, have been ripped off so many times now that all one has to do is to establish a characteristic syncopated martial ostinato, then play it to death. Such was the case here, in spades. As a composer, I find such things maddening in the extreme. A bad score can take a weak film and really do it in. This one does virtually that to this film.
Rating: 
Summary: Time out
Review: After months of procrastination, I finally got around to finishing the book of Michael Crichton's TIMELINE. I thought it was amazing, an absolute must-read. I waited until after I had finished the book to watch the movie, because I didn't want my mind tainted by a director's vision. I realize now that that director's vision needs contact lenses. There are so many things wrong with this movie that I don't know where to start. The first thing that's wrong is the intro scenes. The entire sequence of the man appearing in the road and dying at the hospital is completely rushed, and might as well not have been included in the film. The connection between the man and the dig at Castlegard is completely obliterated. Another thing that bothered me was the relationship between Chris and the professor, which is described as fatherly in the book, not as the professor actually BEING his father - a fabrication of the screenwriter. Kate isn't supposed to realize that Chris has any feelings for her, and Marek's character seems unlike the one described in the book. Another thing that's left out is a vital clue on the parchment, along with the professor's plea for help. Many of the characters are changed. Doniger is much older than described in the book, and Kramer has been transformed into a man. The character of Francios is an invention for the film, and totally unneccessary. A couple of military-types are added to the group that is sent back. In fact, there should only have been 5 people sent back - Kate, Chris, Marek, the man who set off the grenade, and the one who was beheaded (which should have been a woman, as in the book). They also conveniently have 14th century people speaking modern English as opposed to Occitan, like the book has it. There are so many things wrong with this movie, that it was hard to sit through. I only finished it because the friends I was watching it were eager to see it. It's as if someone cut-and-paste a dozen words from the book and told someone else to make a screenplay. This movie is horrible. The acting is lamentable. If you are a fan of the book, I would skip the movie entirely.
Rating:
Summary: Tied with Congo as worst Crichton based movie ever
Review: This movie is bad. It makes the audience jump through a never ending series of ridiculous hoops to follow the "plot". I must admit I read the book before seeing the movie and this colored my expectations quite heavily. However, that being said the movie still falls short when not compared to its literary predecessor. The "acting" is laughably bad, the lines are so trite I found myself rolling my eyes every five minutes and no amount of special effects could save it from these shortcomings. P.S. Someone please beg Michael Crichton to start writing his own screenplays, or at least proofread them to avoid this horrible tripe...
Rating:
Summary: go back in time and hire some decent actors
Review: This was one of the most horribly acted movies I've ever seen. The explanation of time travel and the buttons to get back was poorly done, and the reaction from the young time travelers was...like, "ok, we're going back in time 500 years to save professor. LET'S GO!!" just terrible.
Rating:
Summary: Hey, It Works
Review: Michael Crichton always tells two stories in his novels: a good story with strong characters, and a lot of scientific research. His novels are usually two novels in one. With TIMELINE, he spends a heck of a lot of time describing the quantum physics behind the time machine: cosmic foam, multi-universes, transcription errors. It takes Crichton about 200 pages to describe all of this. In the film, all of this is reduced to about 20 minutes. The physics of the machine are reduced to a sort of "Hey, it's a time machine and it works." That's about all the quantum physics you're going to get in order to get in nearly an hour of battle sequences. The thick Irish (or Scotish?) accents are also difficult to understand at first, especially since these characters carry most of the background information you need to understand why the scientists are building a time machine in the first place. I would have been happy to settle for fewer battles and more explanation of the quantum mechanics in the beginning. This is the true heart of the novel. Without spending some time here, the movie just becomes a high-tech swashbuckler. Also missing are the tensions and in-fighting of the executives of the technology company that built the machine. Without this, the final sequence is denied any depth of meaning or irony. The DVD transfer is excellent. The extras do go on a bit about the making of the movie. It turns into a sort-of "let's pay endless homage to Richard Donner." The emphasis is on the technical side; the actors are not profiled in much depth. I was disappointed that there was no special feature on the quantum mechanics that Crichton built his story on. The movie is mind-candy, not mind-food, which is, after all, the real stuff of which classic science fiction books and movies are made of.
Rating:
Summary: Great Action Scenes
Review: The scenery and the action scenes were great, but the romance was a bit sappy. The movie was also very well acted, especially lead actor Paul Walker.
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe everything you read--this is a decent flick!
Review: After having read some of the reviews here, I did not expect much. I was pleasantly surprised when I watched this movie! If you like history/action/time travel movies, this one presents a very watchable story. Yes, there are some plot holes here and there, but that's not unusual. I found nothing wrong with the acting and casting of characters. Of course the book was better, as most books are, but some liberties had to be taken when paring it down for a 2 hour movie. There are things you'll pick up when you watch a second time, especially if you did not read the book first.
A nice bonus is the special features--four of them about the making of the movie that are fairly comprehensive and decently interesting. All in all a worthy dvd, except for the lack of a booklet/chapter list, which is a pet peeve of mine.
Rating:
Summary: DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME ON TIMELINE!
Review: I thought the new version of The Time Machine was bad, but this far exceeds even THAT turkey. Rent the original Time Machine, Time After Time, Timecop or look for the old Time Tunnel TV series, but PASS ON THIS ONE. Don't even rent it!
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